Monday, 23 May 2011

Well, the Rapture came upon us and demons own all of our souls now. One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the demons will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new demon overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted atheist blogger, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground brimstone mines.

Update:

Well, this blogger was possibly a little hasty earlier - would like to reaffirm his allegiance to this country and its human president. It may not be perfect, but it's still the best government we have...for now.

But seriously, what will happen with this church? When will the excuses come, and what will they be? Or, will they walk away with the $80M dollars so far donated to their church? Of course a failed prediction in 1994 didn't stop them from gaining more followers and more income, so maybe they'll just ramp up the rhetoric and work towards even more followers and more income.

In their defense, the article does point out that Camping has not taken money for his own personal salary, so he may actually believe this stuff - which would be pretty sad. Still, the church is operating under the idea that, "A fool and his money are soon separated," which is morally problematic. Still, it should be interesting to see what comes of this, although if history is any sort of guide, the believers will find some way to rationalize the failed prediction. That's what happens when your position is not based on logic or reason.

Thursday, 19 May 2011

Stephen Hawking has said that heaven is a fairy tale, and really, who can argue with that? Heaven is completely unevidenced and not even well thought through. What is heaven like? Has anyone come up with a conception of heaven that isn't self-contradictory or at least contradictory to the ideas of the religion that spawned it?

Monday, 2 May 2011

A recent commenter was extolling the historical accuracy of the Bible and I got to thinking about it. So, let's focus on the stories of the OT for now and actually look at the historicity of the Bible.

Genesis - god creates the universe in 6 literal days - didn't happen.Adam and Eve - didn't exist.The Exodus - didn't happen (there's no evidence for it and the evidence we do have indicates that the Jews were never in Egypt).Jonah and the whale - didn't happen. Whales don't eat people.The conquest of Canaan and all the genocides - much as I like to harp on theists for this, they didn't happen. Of course, I still feel justified because they are in the book and described as their perfect, omni-max god's actions, so it's fair game.

The more I think about it, the more difficult I find it to think up any story in there that actually is historically accurate. Anyone care to stand up for the Bible's (OT - I'll talk NT in a later post) historicity?